


The Holy Glimmers of Goodbyes

by wolfstarheart



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1930s, 1940s, Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Angst, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, M/M, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony-centric, World War II, pls read this skksmsmsm i love my boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-26 13:16:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13236504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfstarheart/pseuds/wolfstarheart
Summary: AU where Tony and Steve grow up together in the 30s and 40s, along the way managing to be friends, lovers, strangers, and soulmates.**Not necessarily in that order.Also includes: boarding school shenanigans, mac and cheese, drama (but vintage!), and Steve and Tony being the dramatic idiots they are.





	The Holy Glimmers of Goodbyes

**Author's Note:**

> SHIT okay I'm about to cry my internet's awful and this has been so hard to post. Also AO3 hates me I think
> 
> If something seems anachronistic, it's because it probably is-- I tried my best but I couldn't be bothered to research 40s slang, sorry. Also, there's one mention of drug use and several mentions of alcohol (this is Tony-centric after all). 
> 
> The title's from Wilfred Owen's poem, Anthem for Doomed Youth. It seemed appropriate.
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!

It is 1934, smack-dab in the middle of the Depression, and Tony is selfishly grateful that he's spending the colder months in the warm dorms and classrooms of the St Peter's Academy for Young Men. New England Decembers are beautiful, certainly, and the boys have taken to doing their homework or studying for finals by the large, open windows of the common room (when they're not outside pelting each other with snowballs, that is). It's romantic, almost poetic, how the snow crystallizes upon the glass panes and the wind whistles like the finest orchestra around, yet Tony is aware-- in a distant, removed way, but aware nonetheless-- that this December is unforgiving for those who cannot afford new fur coats or heavy duvets like he can. He sees it when they go out to town on the weekends, in the grateful eyes of the shopkeepers when he places a large order, and in the pursed lips of the men who clean their school during the nights. No, not even his insulated life amongst the three hundred other filthy rich boys who attend the Academy can fully shield him from the cold, hungry world.

But the truth is, no amount of sympathy or guilt can stop life from going on, and so Tony finds himself doing something as mundane as taking his finals in everything from Latin to Advanced Physics to Philosophy. It might've been the ease with which he manages to leave his peers far behind, or the fact that he's years younger than them, or the stress of the Depression that insidiously seeps in through cracked-open windows and underneath doors despite all attempts to keep it out. It could've been anything, yet the exact reasons behind why Tony finds himself being cornered by a gang of boys in a locker room the day after the results have been posted are the furthest thing from his mind as he backs slowly into the wall.

"Scared?" taunts one of the boys, and it's not like Tony isn't used to this. The teasing, the jeers thrown at him from across the room, how he never seems to be invited to the spur-of-the-moment football games when the weather's good. So the retort comes fast to his lips, despite every molecule in his body knowing full well that saying anything is a bad idea. "Of a guy who can't scrape a C in math? You wish," Tony spits anyway, and the way the boy's jaw clenches tells Tony he's hit a nerve. "What, is Daddy disappointed? Newsflash, asshole, you're not gonna be taking over his company anytime soon with those brains."

There's a split-second where Tony thinks they might just stalk away, grumbling amongst themselves, and then he's only just dodging a fist flying right at his face, and yeah-- he's been here before. So he sends a swift kick to the guy's knee and grins when it makes purchase. His heart hammers in his ears. In the end, Tony is five feet five, at least two years and twenty pounds lighter than all three of his assaulters, and he's not blind to reality. But he'll be damned if he doesn't go out without a fight. "That hurt, asshole?" he gasps out, and a moment later he's being punched squarely in the gut, hard enough that he doubles over and his breaths tear at his lungs. One second he can see the blinding white tile, and the scuffs the boys' shoes have made on it, and the next his vision is taken over by stars. The tallest boy-- Andrew? Angus?-- squeezes tighter around Tony's neck, and the air burns as he gulps it down through his nose before even that is taken from him by a sweaty palm as it wraps around his face. Logically, he's aware that he has about twenty seconds before he passes out. He doesn't know whether it's a curse or a blessing that his mind's begun a countdown even as the rest of his brain is shrieking can't breathe can't breathe can't breathe. He flails his arms, his feet, but there are three of them and only one of him, and he has a 104 average in Math for a reason.

But then there's a bang, a loud sharp noise that echoes around the locker room, and he only realizes it's the sound of the door being shoved open when he hears another boy, one with a voice both more and less vicious than his captors, yell, "Let him go or I swear, I will beat all of you till you can't walk no more."

There's a laugh, a derisive snicker, and it's all Tony needs to wriggle free from his chokehold. He blinks his eyes once, twice, and the room comes back into focus. And his heart sinks once again when he realizes that his savior's even smaller than he is, short and pale and blonde, with a furious expression that doesn't seem to fit his face.

His height or weight doesn't stop him from getting closer to Tony's assaulters, though, and the room is deadly silent for a second. Then the blonde stops only a foot away from the tallest, and with a large, heaving breath, he spits right at his feet. "Get lost," he snaps, and then the battle begins in earnest.

Tony can only watch, dazed and still unsteady on his feet, as this kid he's never seen before tries to take down three seniors in a move both so idiotic and so brave that he can't help but admire him. Then there's a blow that rings in his ears that's accompanied by a crack that's too loud to not be incredibly painful, and the boys are stepping back. Andrew runs a hand through limp ginger hair, and his lips curl into a smile. "Mess with someone your own size next time," he hisses, and then they're gone, and it's just Tony, leaning against the wall and shaking slightly, and the boy, a crumpled mess against the floor. Who, he realizes, is smiling. His lips are bloody, and he might just be missing a tooth, but he's  _smiling_ , and Tony has to admit that it sends a thrill down his spine.

"Jesus," Tony mutters after a second, and then he's walking across the locker room, kneeling down next to his rescuer and looking concernedly at the arm that's twisted at an angle that it definitely shouldn't be twisted at. "That's broken for sure. What in the world were you thinking?"

"I was thinkin'," the boy says, and they can both hear the pain in his voice, "that-- that I'm not the type ta' stand by and watch bullies be bullies."

Even with his breaths ragged and his words slightly slurred, Tony can hear the unmistakeable Brooklyn accent shining through. "I'm Tony," he says, after a moment's hesitation.

"I know," the boy says, and manages to worm himself into a sitting-up position, letting out a soft groan when he jostles his arm slightly. "'M Steve Rogers."

"You didn't have to do that, Steve Rogers," Tony says. But Steve has steely blue eyes that never waver from his face no matter how his mouth contorts with pain, blue eyes that are filled with so much determination he knows he could never convince him to do otherwise. So he stands up, brushes off his pants despite his hands trembling ever so slightly, and offers him his arm. "You know I have to take you to the nurse."

Steve takes Tony's hand with his uninjured limb and pulls himself up with surprising ease. They stand eye to eye, shoulder to shoulder for a moment, and Tony hopes his face says everything his pride won't allow him to say:  _thank you. Thank you for saving my life. Thank you for being the only one in this godforsaken school to ever stick up for me._

Steve nods, as if he could read his mind, and his jaw sets. "She won't be pleased I'm back again," he admits.

There's a note of resignation in his voice that makes Tony chuckle despite himself. "You do this often?" he asks, though he can't say he's surprised. "How come I've never seen you around?"

"You're a rich kid, practically royalty," Steve says as they leave the locker room, stumbling along together down the hallway as the evening sunset bathes the bulletin boards and dark linoleum floor in a wash of crimson-gold. "And I'm... I'm jus' the scholarship kid."

"No," Tony says decisively. "You're Steve, the bravest, stupidest person I've ever met." There's a pause in which he thinks he might've offended the boy, and then they're both laughing as if every gasped breath didn't sting, and Tony knows that this is one of those moments, the kind that might just change your life. Steve smiles wider, and maybe it's just him, but the world seems to get just the slightest bit warmer.

 

Winter melts into spring, and by then, Steve and Tony are fast friends. They don't have any classes together, but they spend the evenings roaming the vast grounds of the campus or holing up in the school library, which is cavernous and incredibly cozy and proves to be a welcome refuge against particularly chilly days, which happen more often than you'd think in the middle of March. It's one of these cold spells that forces them to retreat indoors, and so they find a secluded corner of the nonfiction section and read in silence for awhile. Well, Tony reads, and Steve draws. And then Tony isn't doing much reading at all, and is instead captivated by the way Steve's fingers so deftly shape lines and curves into soft, dainty lips and brash noses, sketching out everyone from their favorite janitor to their most loathed classmate in dark charcoal.

It takes him a little while to notice the attention, and when he does, he instantly flushes and drops the stick of charcoal. "They're not, you know, particularly good."

Steve, in the few months he's known him, has always prided himself on being honest, even if that means owning up to not finishing his homework or throwing the first punch and landing himself in detention, and in general, being a bigger man (boy?) than Tony could ever be. It's a funny thing, then, that Steve chooses to, if not lie, than be ridiculously modest over a few drawings that are most definitely good. Tony's grown up around expensive art, is accustomed to Carvaggios hanging in the dining room and Monets in the library, and so he thinks he's qualified enough to declare that Steve is incredibly talented, thank you very much. Which he does, to Steve's embarrassment.

"Seriously, it's just a hobby," Steve mutters, brushing off the charcoal dust and inadvertently leaving black smudges all over his pants. "Besides, I'm never going to be an artist."

Tony snaps his book shut, his attention now fully on the other boy. "Why not?" he blurts out. "I mean. That's the whole American Dream, isn't it? You can be whatever you wanna be, even if the economy's shit and the stock market's down and life just sucks in general?"

That, at least, gets a smile from Steve. A smile that quickly is replaced by a solemn, too serious expression. He at once looks about twice his age, and there's a look in his eyes that stings of winters spent without heating and summers spent without enough food. Tony doesn't like it one bit. "Art won't pay the bills, for one. Two, I'm not here on an art scholarship. I applied saying I want to become a doctor."

Tony blinks, not even sure why he's surprised by that. "A doctor?" he repeats, narrowing his eyes as he tries to wrap his head around this new revelation. He realizes, then, that they've never done the whole what do you want to be? talk until now. Maybe because friendship with Steve was easy and came with none of the burdens or expectations that he'd had to shoulder as Howard Stark's son and eventual successor. Steve, for his part, looks slightly hurt, and so Tony adds hurriedly, "Of course, you'd be a great one. The only doctor I'd ever go to, honest."

Steve exhales softly. "I'm not smart like you, Tony, I'm aware of that. I just figured, with how sick I am," and Tony's taken back to weeks spent pacing outside the nurses' quarters, anxiously waiting to be allowed in to see Steve, in again because of another bout of the flu, or a particularly severe asthma attack, or an allergic reaction that made his throat swell up in a matter of seconds, "that maybe I'd, you know, help a kid out there just like me."

Tony's silent for a moment. He's certain, then, that this is something golden for Steve, something meaningful and Important-with-a-capital-I, exactly the kind of thing that he doesn't have himself. A purpose. Something good and true just like the rest of him. He's also certain that he cannot ruin it for Steve with one of his tactless comments that he's so known for; Steve, who is both so strong and so breakable that it makes his head hurt. So, when he opens his mouth, he pronounces each word with caution, putting more care into them than he does for most of his schoolwork. "That's incredible, Steve," he says, and he smiles a little, enough that he hopes it conveys the message that he well and truly means it.

Steve smiles back, wide and happy and warm. "What about you?" he asks, and it's so unexpected that Tony actually giggles. "What? What is it?"

"No offense, Steve, but nobody's ever asked me that before," he says, and it's only when the other boy raises a questioning eyebrow that he adds, "it was always just, I dunno, assumed that I'd work for my father's company. I'd go to MIT-- that's my dad's alma mater-- and graduate as an engineering major, probably, and then work in R&D until he retires and passes on the CEO position to me." It's been an unspoken truth that Tony's known all his life, but actually saying it out loud makes it feel real. Concrete. And, whether he'd like to admit it or not, a little bit caging. Sure, he's self-aware enough to realize that he's pretty much an engineering prodigy, and that he'd probably go to MIT and then work on projects anyway. He's also self-aware enough to know that he's never had the choice to decide to do so. That had been made for him since the moment he was conceived.

And though he doesn't voice all this aloud, Steve seems to understand anyway. He reaches out, hesitates for a second, and then touches Tony's shoulder. His hands are warm over his uniform shirt, and he almost wants to shiver. The lamp next to the bookshelf they're half-leaning against sets Steve's blue eyes alight, turns them into the ocean at high tide, and he bites his lip for a second before saying, "You know, you can still be whatever you wanna be. No matter what your father wants."

"You haven't met my dad, then," Tony tells him, and he lets out a chuckle to distract himself from the way his heart quickens. Steve is so blissfully naive-- no, not naive. Idealistic. Steve is so blissfully, wonderfully idealistic, enough that he can almost be convinced to believe in things like freedom and following one's dreams. Stupid, wonderful things like that.

 

Tony turns twelve in May of 1935. It's his first birthday away from home-- not that all his other birthdays were anything special. Howard was always working, Maria would forget what day it was until she'd come bursting into his room several hours into the afternoon with a hurriedly-wrapped present and an apologetic smile, and he'd never had enough friends (or any, really) to have a proper party. Jarvis would sing him a happy birthday, though, and that was always nice. It's the only thing he decides he misses as he opens his eyes on the twenty-ninth and realizes that he's finally a little bit older.

Then the door to his dorm slams open, and Steve's running inside, carrying a bag that looks huge even with all the books they have to lug around for their classes. Tony blinks the sleep out of his eyes and sits up, letting out a yawn. "What the hell are you doin' here, Steven?" he mumbles, raising his eyebrows at the boy. "You know you're not technically allowed to be here."

"Your roommate isn't here to tell on me," says Steve, which isn't exactly a lie-- Rupert's been out with the measles for the last week-- and it's not like the poor guy being here would've ben able to stop Steve when he wanted to do something anyway. "Besides, it's, like, four in the morning. Nobody's awake to catch me in the act."

"Except us," Tony points out, and okay, so that's why he's so exhausted. (It's got nothing to do with the fact that he'd stayed up late working on a new plan for an invention, nothing at all). "Why are you up at this ungodly hour anyway?"

Steve looks at him like he's crazy. "'Cause it's your birthday," he says, disbelief loud in his voice. "And I wanted to give you your gift."

"Gift," Tony repeats distantly, and the numbers don't seem to add up in his mind. Sure, Steve's his friend, but-- they don't do this sort of thing, do they? He knows the Rogers family aren't exactly well off, which is why he'd declared that they weren't to do anything for Christmas, last year or for any years to come in the future. He'd just assumed that Steve would wish him a happy birthday and they'd go about their day as usual. And then Steve's opening his bag and setting a messily-wrapped box in front of him, and Tony doesn't know whether to feel guilty or grateful or shocked. "You didn't have to--"

"'Course I did," Steve says, pushing it towards him insistently. "Now go on, open it." So Tony picks it up and undoes the ribbon (where'd he even get ribbon from, Jesus), pulling away the brightly patterned wrapping paper to reveal a wristwatch that gleams brightly in the darkened room. Steve's eyes are wide, darting from Tony to the watch to Tony again, and it takes him a second to realize that the boy's nervous. "Um... do you like it? I mean, I'm sure you could buy better. Saved up three months' worth of pocket money to get it, but it isn't really a lot, and I mean, if you don't like it--"

"No," Tony murmurs, and his chest is expanding with something warm he can't quite place. "It's-- it's amazing. Really."

"Really?" Steve exclaims, and the tension's gone from his voice now. He flops down beside Tony and grins. "Good. Then it was worth it."

Tony wants to say it wasn't, wants to say he isn't-- worth it, obviously-- but the words never quite leave his mouth. He breathes in, breathes out, and the sun rises slowly over the horizon, lighting up the back of his curtains until his sparsely-furnished dorm room is glowing. He has breakfast and classes to get to, he knows. There's no reason for the world to stop just because Steve Rogers likes him enough to buy him a birthday gift. But Tony can't help but think that, for the first time, he's looking forward to growing up a bit. He gets to do it with Steve, and that makes the idea of things changing and moving on so much less scarier.

"Wanna skip classes and persuade the cooks to let us have some cake?" he asks, and after a moment of consideration, Steve mumbles his acquiescence. They spend the rest of the day talking about dumb things, about movies and books and comics and how the new English teacher is an absolute bore, and Tony never says how thankful he is. He doesn't have to, because Steve knows it, feels it with every squeezed hand and slow smile.

 

It's the summer of '36 and they'd both taken the train home to the city. (It was one of the things they first bonded over, even though Tony's from Manhattan and Steve's obviously from Brooklyn.) They'd never gone home together, though, because last year Tony had left early, right after finals were over, whisked away by his parents for a month-long trip to Italy. And that'd been lovely enough, but the long ship ride across the Atlantic didn't compare to them annoying everyone else in their compartment with their loud laughter and energetic card games. And for that journey, everything seemed like it would be alright.

But that was weeks ago, and Tony's been cooped up in the mansion, bored out of his mind in the greatest city in the world, can you believe it? He fiddles with his inventions and steals tools from his dad's workshop (Howard never notices because he's rarely ever home these days) and bothers Jarvis and it still isn't enough to fill the Steve-shaped void in his life. Truthfully, it's begun to worry him. He'd gotten a letter a week after they'd got home in Steve's hurried scrawl, and then nothing. Nada.

So he does what any self-respecting best friend would do: he goes all the way to Brooklyn and tracks down the address on the envelope, because he isn't about to spend his summer alone like all the other summers of his life. Tony's never done this before, not exactly, and he gets lost a good few times before eventually finding the apartment building Steve and his mother live in. He stares up at it, though there's not much to stare at, because it's not particularly tall: about eight stories, with windows bright with full washing lines. Around him, the street bustles with life: there's a diner with rugged men smoking outside it, a tailor conversing rapidly in a language he can't quite recognize with a harried-looking mother while her two toddlers poke at streetlights, a group of giggling young girls who peer at him before disappearing into one of the neighboring buildings. Tony can't help but feel out of place, but he shakes off the feeling and steps inside the lobby.

It's only a short elevator ride to the fourth floor, though the machinery creaks ominously, and Tony's glad to step out onto the landing when they come to a stop. The walls of the hallway are chipping, and the doors, of which there are four, are all made of the same dull, dark wood. He glances one last time at the envelope before shoving it back into his pocket and rapping smartly against the door right at the other end of the little passageway. For a second he's afraid that Steve isn't home, but as soon as he raises his fist again there's the sound of a key turning in a lock, and a short woman, just as blonde as Steve, peers nervously at him through the crack of the door. "I'm a friend of Steve's," Tony says, smoothing down his shirt, and after a moment's consideration she opens the door wider.

"Come in, then," she offers, and so Tony steps inside. Casting a look around, he discovers that the living room is smaller than he'd expected. The couches sag in places they shouldn't, and the radio that's perched atop a counter is a particularly old model, playing something he thinks might be by Billie Holiday. The faded curtains billow in the soft breeze, and the sun dances merrily across the old wooden furniture. It's so homey he's almost uncomfortable. "I'm Sarah, Steve's mom," she says, though he'd figured that out as soon as he'd seen her face. "You must be Tony." He nods mutely, about to start on some polite smalltalk like he does with all the guests his parents have over, but then all thoughts of home decor are banished from his mind as a familiar face appears by the back of the room. "Tony?" Steve says, almost disbelievingly, as he steps out from a doorway he hadn't even noticed before.

Tony holds his hands up and smiles cheerily. "I just figured this summer was going to be pretty boring without my best pal around, right?" and his tone is charming enough that Steve's frown lessens slightly.

"Go on then, Steve, show him to your room," Sarah says, waving her hands and them. She's got an apron on over her floral dress, and come to think of it, a distinct smell of grilled meat is floating over to him from the kitchen. It's late enough that she must already be starting on dinner, because Tony hadn't wanted to impose on them for lunch, which he thinks, now, was pretty solid hindsight: Steve looks confused-slash-mad enough that eating a meal with him would be downright awkward. So he follows Steve to the door on the other end of the hall, and, with only the slightest bit of trepidation, follows him into the room.

It's about as Steve-like as he could imagine: the bed is small and no-nonsense, propped up against the wall next to the window, the closet is small, and there's a large desk with sketchbooks and magazines and newspaper stacked atop it. The walls are cracked in several places, but he's tried to cover them up (with some degree of success) with paintings that he must've done himself. Steve sits down on one end of the mattress, and waits for it to stop creaking before he looks up and asks, "Tony, what on Earth are you doing here?"

"I was... bored," says Tony, because that's not exactly a lie.

"You mentioned that, yeah."

"And also you didn't write back," he adds, hating how ridiculous he sounds (he's not some silent movie actress, for God's sake), "and the mansion's just... dull. It gets awfully lonely there when your only company's your butler, and don't get me wrong, Jarvis is amazing, but he's not exactly a great conversation partner when you want to talk about football or baseball cards or how totally boring dinner parties are."

Steve just looks at him for a moment, and he's almost convinced he's going to be kicked out, but then the boy deflates. "Oh, Tony," he says, and there's a hint of exasperation in his voice but he's smiling, so he takes that as a good sign and sits down next to him. "I have to say I missed your rambling."

Tony huffs out a laugh. "Yeah, well," he says, "I had to brag about how I'm taller than you." It's true: he'd been amazed to wake up one morning last week and realize that he'd become, almost instantaneously, a good three inches taller. Even though they're still both pretty short, he counts that as a win. He's moving up in the world now, isn't he?

"I'm still older," Steve reminds him, giving him a playful shove in the shoulder that Tony returns with just as much vigor, "so you can suck it, Tones."

"Don't call me that," Tony whines, and then abruptly purses his lips. "Did you-- did you not want me to visit?"

Steve must sense his sudden insecurity, because he shakes his head vehemently, and quickly says, "It's not that, trust me. I just--" and Tony's, well, he's all too ready to fill in the blanks.

"You thought I'd judge you?" Tony asks, something heavy settling in the bottom of his stomach. "For not living in a giant mansion like I do?"

"No!" Steve says loudly, and then winces. "I mean, not exactly." Tony raises an eyebrow, and Steve continues, "I'm not ashamed. Of being poor, that is. I just didn't want you to think any lesser of me." He kicks his feet slightly, and his gaze is fixed decisively at the floor. The city continues to laugh and yell, cars continue to honk, and Tony feels almost... hurt.

"I could never," Tony mutters. "Is that it, then? You just see me as another rich kid? Because, Steve, let me tell ya, those big rooms and fancy chandeliers don't mean shit when your parents haven't seen you in days and only ask about you when it's to do with your grades in school. Or when they're drunk, as usual, and want to lecture me about how I'm not living up to my full potential." He has to bite down on his lip to stop himself from launching into a full-blown tirade, and his hands worm their way underneath his thighs so that Steve doesn't see them trembling slightly. The bitterness in his voice is so poignant he can feel it on his tongue, and in the air itself, and Steve flinches back almost imperceptibly.

"Oh, Tony," he repeats, and his posture softens. Tony wants to bolt right out of this tiny, cozy little apartment and never see Steve's too-nice mom or Steve himself ever again. Then Steve reaches out and hugs him, bony arms wrapping around Tony's narrow shoulders, and he can't believe he ever wanted to leave this boy, this boy who he can't imagine not laughing around with and telling stories to, this boy who is so much more than just his 'best pal'.

When Tony emerges, his eyes are definitely not a little wet, not one bit. He lets out a soft smile. "So what did you get up to all day, huh?"

"I read," Steve says, and gestures at the mess on his desk. "Was thinkin' 'bout college too. 'Course, I have to get in first--"

"--You will--"

"--and besides, I'd have to get a job so I could pay for it, so I've been working too," Steve adds, as if Tony'd never interrupted him in the first place. "But then I had to quit. 'Cause, well, I got sick again." And that explains why he hadn't been writing. Tony suddenly feels like the world's biggest jerk. "Don't worry, though, it was only the allergies flaring up again. I'm fine, really," he adds, not that he believes him.

"You'll find a way," Tony tells him decisively, and then stills. "Though," and here his voice lowers conspiratorially despite the fact that there isn't anyone here to overhear him, "according to my dad's military friends, they think there's gonna be another war. We might not even get to go to college for awhile." He says it lightly, speculatively, yet he can't say the thought hasn't consumed him late at night. Him in some trench in Europe, perhaps, keeping watch while his men sleep. Him in the Air Force, dropping bombs on villages and towns that seem like specks from such a height. It fills him with a mixture of both terror and excitement that he knows he shouldn't feel, and yet...

"War," Steve says lowly. "I know my Ma would cry for days, but you know what, Tony? If there really is going to be another war-- I'm gonna fight. I'm gonna find a way, allergies and sicknesses be damned." There's something feverish in his voice, something that's possessed him like a ghost in the night, and Tony can't help but glance at the framed photo on his bedside table: it's incredibly faded, but he can distinctly make out a man in an army uniform with Steve's smile and Steve's straightened posture. As if he could read his mind, Steve adds, "I'm gonna fight like my old man did. Gonna make him proud."

Tony looks at Steve and imagines losing him. "Then I'm coming with you," he declares, and they're both just kids, not even sixteen yet yet, still too young to comprehend war and all its numerous horrors despite the fact that they haven't been boys for awhile now. They are kids teetering on the edge of adulthood, clinging onto an adolescence that they both got far too little time to experience, though for two completely separate reasons. "We're going to storm into Europe and kill every last Nazi. We're gonna be heroes, Steve, just you wait."

 

It's 1938, and the summer sky is brighter than they've ever seen it. They've turned in those last few extra-credit assignments, finished taking their finals, and now all there's left to do is actually graduate, which won't happen for another few days when their results come out. Tony and Steve spend these languid days traipsing around the campus, stopping every now and then to reminiscence ("Hey, wasn't that the tree I fell off of?" "You kept saying it was for science, but I don't think the nurse ever believed you.") It feels weird to think about how, this time next week, they'll be saying goodbye to the school they've spent years in, have grown up in, became men in.

Steve is nearly seventeen, now, and though he's still unhealthily skinny for his age, he's filled out some. His hair, blonde as ever, is now a little longer; his hands are callused from years of odd jobs and 'science experiments' with Tony; and when he's angry his jaw sets in a way that it never did when he was younger. Yet-- and perhaps this is because Steve's always been Steve to him, always been solidly dependable in a way nothing else in his life is-- Tony can still see that defiant little boy dead set on defending him from a bunch of bullies in a locker room in his eyes.

"What'chu looking at?" Steve half-says, half-laughs, and Tony realizes he's been daydreaming a bit. He blinks, and they're all at once in their spot in the library, which is especially empty given nobody's inclined to study now that finals are over. Even though Tony insists that Steve could get himself a girl without trying, he's still self-conscious in a way that makes him turn away slightly and blush when Tony gives him his full, undivided, all-seeing attention. Like now.

"Oh, nothing," Tony says. "Just thinking about, well, when we first met." He'd been eleven then; it's weird to think about being that young when he feels so much older than the fifteen he really is.

Steve sighs. He rests his head against the wall, eyes unfocused as he fiddles with a pen. "You ever think about what would've happened? You know, if I hadn't heard the fight and rushed in?"

Tony has. He's thought about it a lot, in fact. On the days when he and Steve are in a fight (which isn't often, but when it happens, they tear into each other with cutting insults and sneers and the cold shoulder, which is arguably worse), he imagines what it'd be like if he'd never met the guy, if he'd just left Tony there to fend for himself. But even then, furious at Steve, he can't bring himself to truly wish for them to never have met. Steve is a part of Tony, for better or for worse, no matter whether they're in the best of terms or currently hate each other's guts. So when Steve brings it up, a thought so unwelcome intruding on their sacred corner of the library, he shudders involuntarily. "Well," he says, hoping Steve hadn't noticed, "I would've still gotten out alright. Those losers had nothing on me."

"You looked like you were a few seconds from passing out," Steve says, snorting. "They had you in a chokehold and you were outnumbered three to one, but sure. Let's just go with what you said."

Tony rolls his eyes, but he's smiling now. Not that he'd ever admit it, but he needed-- needs-- Steve. Can't imagine life without him, cheesy as that sounds.

 _But I'll have to,_  Tony thinks, and he's been trying to avoid even going there these last few months, but here, sitting together with nothing to do but while away their last few days in St Peter's, he can't do anything but confront the fact that come fall he'll be in MIT, states away from Steve. No more waking each other up at ridiculously early hours of the morning, no more snowball fights, no more cramming for tests together. All they'll have is letters, and Tony can't bear to have his best friend reduced to a bunch of stupid words and a whole lot of distance. "It's going to be so weird when I start college," he says, and immediately wants to take it back. Sure, he'll be missed, but Steve can survive without him. He has other friends, a whole life in Brooklyn that Tony can never truly be a part of, and maybe he'll move on and forget all about that little kid he saved from bullies once upon a time--

Steve's staring at him, now, with that intensity that he usually only has when examining something he's drawing. In his mind, Tony's sure, Steve is tracing every part of his face, committing it to memory, noting the shadows of his nose, the bags under his eyes, the rise and fall of his cheeks, and everything below: the rapid pumping of his heart, the shuddering of his pulse, the aching of his soul. "You know," he murmurs, and it's like Steve could hear every word of his mini-meltdown, "I'm gonna miss you so fuckin' much."

"Language," Tony says with a grin, but the taste of the word is bittersweet.

"But I'll write," Steve presses on, and when Tony scoffs he adds, "and I'll visit, I swear. And of course you'll be back during the holidays, right?"

"Whenever I can," Tony promises.

"And that's all we can do," Steve says, and his mouth is turning down, a tooth digging into his chapped pink lip, and Tony feels a stab of guilt for ruining his perfect day with thoughts of things as bleak as the future. "But-- you're gonna graduate before we even know it, and then you'll be back, of course, and sure, things will have changed, but in good ways too, right? And you're gonna achieve so much... just promise me you'll piss off a few preppy assholes for me, won't you?" There's an implication here, an implication that Tony's got to do college the right way because Steve isn't going to get to do it at all, or at least, not until he saves up enough money for him to attend school. They've had plenty of arguments about it, but Steve is set on working and has too much pride to let Tony pay his tuition, and it's just another wedge between them, another yard added to the distance Tony knows is expanding between them even if he doesn't want to admit it.

Tony nods. "'Course," he says, and feels the cold touch of loneliness ghost over his heart despite himself. "'Course I will, Steve."

 

It's early 1939 and there's almost definitely going to be a war and life rushes on surprisingly fast here at MIT. It's not that Tony doesn't like it; he actually enjoys assignments now that they're for classes that actually challenge him, and the state of the art resources he can use for messing around with his own experiments and inventions is definitely a bonus. But the human element, well, that's a lot harder than machines, and the fact is, people don't exactly like Tony. People have never liked him, Steve being the exception, and so far that's continued to be the case. His professors alternate between being amused by and being infuriated by him, which is a dangerous line to tread when you're trying to maintain a 4.0 GPA; his roommate's been ignoring him since freshman orientation; and to the others he's just the rich little kid who shows them up when it comes to projects or grades.

That doesn't stop them from inviting him to parties, because 'rich' takes precedence over all the other adjectives he's sure they use to describe him, adjectives like annoying and privileged and rude (which, he'll admit, are pretty accurate). So he spends his weekends (and sometimes his weekdays) getting wasted with a bunch of older students who seem to like him the most when he's slurring and tumbling around and about three seconds from passing out. And it's fine. It's fine that none of them talk to him sober, it's fine that he can't really sleep at night these days, it's fine that Steve only writes occasionally and that his letters are getting shorter. Because he'd had Thanksgiving and Christmas to look forward to, a few weeks he could spend sneaking out of the mansion (which is emptier than ever, these days) to visit Steve.

But now there's months to go until spring break, and Steve had seemed different during Christmas. Or maybe they've both become different people. Tony, for all his smarts, couldn't tell you which one's true. And he could deal with that too, but now Steve hasn't written for something like three weeks, not that he's counting, and he can deal with this too, it's just--

It's easier not to deal, in a way. At least when you're surrounded with people with access to pretty much every illegal substance under the planet. So Tony stumbles into yet another frat party and does seven tequila shots in the span of three minutes, and when he's done he finds a group of girls doing coke in the kitchen and they're more than willing to share. And one of them, a tall girl Tony doesn't quite catch the name of, has blonde hair that glimmers under the bright fluorescent lights and sharp blue eyes, eyes that seem to challenge him to be brave. And so Tony kisses her.

Her friends giggle and hoot but Tony barely hears them; her lips are soft on his, warm breath ghosting against his tongue, and when he pulls back for air she's smirking in a way that should mean danger. But Tony's not here to be safe or responsible, so he kisses her again. And again. And by the time they're done, they're in a bedroom somewhere and their cheeks are warm from the alcohol and the making-out and her fingers are reaching for his pants. And it's so easy, so easy to let his thoughts dull in his mind. Not that his mind's ever fallen silent, but he doesn't have to think quite so hard about everything anymore. And so he doesn't think, or tries not to anyway, and lets her pull his zipper down, lets her run fingers around his bare chest, and she's reaching down when he catches a glimpse of her eyes and it's like Steve's staring him in the face for a second.

Suddenly, he feels like he's crashing.

"No," Tony mumbles, and when she ignores him he pushes her hands away. "Stop." His head's aching slightly now, and when he moves the world seems to spin, around and around in circles like he's caught in the eye of a storm.

The girl frowns. "Thought you wanted this," she says and Tony can't tell if she's hurt or just pissed off. But she doesn't try it again, and he thanks her silently for that because he's pretty sure he's far too dizzy to resist her a second time.

Tony forces his lips around words that feel too big for his mouth. "Gonna-- gonna go hoooome." Home is Steve, home is New York, home is far away and definitely not here, and he laughs for far too long. When he stops, he mumbles, "gonna go. Jus'... I'm sorry."

Her voice is hard when she replies, "Me too." And it's that tone, that sound that reeks of disappointment that echoes in Tony's ear when he manages to find his way out of the frat house and walk towards his dorm room. It's way too late, and he's not sure how he manages to make it back in one piece, but he does. He passes out in his bed and wakes up in the late afternoon, his head pounding and his mouth tasting of something foul. He throws up in the toilet two times and swallows more painkillers than are probably healthy and then goes right back to sleep.

He's woken up again not by his own nausea, but by a sharp pounding on his door. Part of him thinks it's a murderer or something, but then he hears a voice that's all too familiar ring out, "Open the fuckin' door, Tony," and his stomach sinks faster than a dead weight in water. When he goes to get the door, Howard Stark glares down at him with enough ferocity that he thinks he might just get killed tonight after all, and his father thrusts a newspaper into his arms with so much force it nearly topples him over. "Have you seen this, boy?" So Tony stands in the doorway and unfurls the paper, and when he does he sees his face grinning right back up at him, shot glass clutched tightly in one hand in the first picture. The one below is even worse, not that he thought that was possible: somehow, someone's gotten a photo of him doing what is unmistakably a line of cocaine. He'd probably throw up a second time if he didn't know how much Howard's shoes cost. "What do you have to say about that, huh?"

"I'm sorry," Tony mumbles, twisting his hands together, and Howard just scoffs, striding into the room and glancing around at his surroundings. "It won't happen again, I swear, Dad."

"It better not!" Howard explodes, and he has to physically restrain himself from flinching. He feels like a little kid all over again. "Do you know what the board was talking about at our meeting today, boy? Not the products, not the stocks, no-- they were all concerned about Tony's fuckin' drug problem. Do you know what that looked like? Do you even care?"

Tony grits his teeth. "I don't have a drug problem," he says.

"I don't care if you do," Howard says, voice cold. This time Tony really does flinch. "You can be doing every drug under the sun in your own time, boy, but it better not get in the papers ever again. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, sir," he mumbles, and it's all he manages to get out before the man's gone and Tony is alone once again.

The next day dawns bright and early, too cheery for how Tony's feeling. He takes a shower, if only to get the stench of alcohol off his skin, and then opens up his textbooks and tries to finish the reading he needs to do for tomorrow's Mechanics lecture, but his mind is anywhere but science. It's almost a relief when someone knocks at the door once again; Tony expects to see his roommate back after doing whatever the guy does, and so he nearly has a goddamn heart attack when he pulls it open to see Steve staring back at him, worry creasing his eyes.

"Steve?" he asks, skin cold, and he wants to hug him but he's frozen in place, eyes widened in shock. "What-- what're you doing here?"

"Checking on you," Steve says plainly, and then looks into the room behind him. "May I?" Tony wordlessly steps aside, and they walk together into the dorm, Tony patting his desk chair for Steve to sit down in because it's the only clean surface in the room at the moment. "Tony--"

"You didn't write," Tony says, and it sounds accusatory even to his ears. And, God, this wasn't how he'd wanted this to go.

"I know, and I'm sorry," he replies. "But I'm here now, aren't I?"

And if that doesn't send warning bells ringing in Tony's ears. "Why are you here, Steve?" he asks, and it's not like he hadn't wanted this, just not-- just not because of the reason he thinks Steve's here for. "Did you read that fucking article?"

Steve at least has the decency to look contrite. "I was worried," he says, voice low, "I just-- I wanted to make sure you're alright."

"Well, I'm not," Tony snaps, and he has no idea where this anger's coming from, only that now that it's out he knows there's no stopping it. "What did you think you'd find? Me sitting here happy as ever after a night getting so drunk and high I probably nearly died? Newsflash, Steve, people change."

"This isn't change," Steve says, eyes narrowed. "This is you being reckless and stupid. Yeah, stupid. You know enough not to do drugs, Tony, what the hell--"

"Well, maybe I'm not as smart as you thought I am," Tony hisses, and he's standing up now, muscles tensed as if ready for a fight. "Or maybe I just didn't care. Not that anyone else does either. I mean, my own father doesn't care whether I live or die 's'long as I don't embarrass him in the papers, and you don't give a fuck unless I'm crossing some ridiculous moral line in your mind, so why the fuck should I care either--"

"'Course I care, what do--"

"Just get out," says Tony, and when Steve just stops, eyes wide, he yells, "just get the hell out, Steve, go back to fuckin' Brooklyn and live your life and just leave me the hell alone!"

And so Steve leaves, walks out the door without one glance back, and when he's long gone Tony just falls back down on his bed and stares at the ceiling until sleep claims him for another night.

 

They go five months without talking and then it's May and Tony gets a telegram and it's like his heart stops in his chest. He rushes out of campus, never mind the fact that he has classes all week, and takes the train all the way to New York without catching a wink of sleep. He takes a cab into Brooklyn and fuck, he's late--

The last few people are trailing out of the cemetery when he arrives, but he rushes past them, ignores everyone and everything until he sees Steve kneeling in front of a grave, and everything within him breaks.

"Steve," he whispers into the heavy evening air, and then he's running toward the boy. He looks less than weak, a mess of skin and bones clinging to a cold gray gravestone, and he doesn't even look up when Tony comes to stand beside him. "Steve, I--"

"She's gone, Tony," and his voice is completely empty, devoid of any emotion at all, and shit. "It was tuberculosis, in the end, from one too many shifts in the hospital. We needed the money 'cause I'd been sicker than usual lately, and--" his voice breaks. When he continues, Tony can see his entire body trembling in the wind. "I didn't know what to do, I barely had enough for a doctor and when he finally agreed to see her she was already half-gone."

It's nearly summer and Tony's never felt colder. "God, Steve," he says, and he turns his head at the sound of Tony's voice and those once sparkling eyes are just dull, unfocused, so unlike Steve that he wants to throw up. He doesn't, though, because for once he's not going to be selfish. For once, he's gonna fix things. So he wraps his arms around the boy he wants more than anything to be happy, the man he wishes he could shield from this horrible, cruel world, and he says, "I'm so sorry." And he is. Sorry that Sarah's been taken from him far too soon, sorry that he's such an awful friend, sorry that Steve's suffered so much when he's the best of them all. Tony is so fucking sorry and the worst part is it doesn't even matter anymore.

And then Steve's crying into his chest, and his sobs are loud and unsteady and ugly. Tony runs his hands through his hair and murmurs reassurances he knows aren't helping. Not that he  _can_  help with this, although if he could bring Sarah Rogers back he'd sacrifice anything to do it. No, this is Steve's battle to fight, and the fact that he knows it makes him feel all the more helpless. It's awhile before Steve lifts his head, and when he does, the sky's gone completely dark. His eyes are red, smudged and bleary, and all Tony can do is hold him tighter and whisper, "you look like shit, buddy."

He laughs at that, a cracked and broken laugh that grates against their ears, but it's something. It's something, and it's all they have, and Tony is determined to not let this,  _them_ , slip through the cracks ever again. "You have me," Tony adds, almost as an afterthought, but it's far too meaningful to actually be one. "I know it's not worth much, but, Steve, you're not fucking alone." Steve stills for a moment, and then he's hugging him back, his strong heartbeat against Tony's chest the only thing keeping him sane as he prays to any God that might be out there that Steve gets through this alright.

 

It's 1940 and Tony graduates from MIT and now he's back in the city, home at last. It's weird to be in the mansion again: he almost feels like he's grown out of his room. The blueprints for inventions stuffed in desk drawers seem childish, now, and when he lays down in his bed and stares up at the ceiling, he thinks back to long nights, before St Peter's, doing exactly this, and all of a sudden he feels old. The thought is enough to make him sprint out of the room, mumbling a hasty goodbye to Jarvis, and walk all the way to Steve's neighborhood.

He's gotten a key to their apartment, sometime in between that first fateful visit (they've laughed about it plenty of times since) and now, and so he slips in and takes a moment to look around, breathing in the memories like they're palpable in the air. The apartment is emptier without Sarah, and Tony briefly wonders whether Steve sees her in every corner, whether he ever thinks about moving just so he doesn't miss her every day. But the day is too bright to dwell on such morbid thoughts for long, and so he focuses instead on how the apartment's become more  _Steve-like_  since the last time he's been here. There's art everywhere, now, and it's definitely messier than his mom ever let it get, but it still retains that homely feel that the mansion never quite managed to acquire.

Then Steve's poking his head through the doorway that leads to the kitchen, and his eyes widen when he sees him. "Tony?" he asks, voice sharp with disbelief.

"The one and only," Tony says, and he tosses his bag in the corner and bounds over to Steve. "What'chu making?"

Steve just blinks at him. "You're home," he says, and Tony nods, and that's all he needs to say, really. Steve's been cooking something, and he hadn't been a very good cook (to say the least) when they were younger, so Tony's pleasantly surprised when he lifts a lid and finds that the mac and cheese that's cooking in a pot smells practically edible. "Hey, you can stay for lunch. This is almost done, I think." He gives it a stir, poking at some of the pasta experimentally and frowning. In his worn, baggy jeans and loose cotton shirt, pottering around the kitchen with a salt shaker in one hand and a spoon in the other, Steve seems almost domestic. Tony would laugh except the sight's more endearing than he'll care to admit.

So they sit around the dining table and eat mac and cheese, and Steve manages to find a couple of beers and tosses one to Tony with a grin. "You know," he says, blowing on his bowl to cool it down, "it's the first time I've ever been mistaken for 21."

"Well, I dunno what that guy was on," Tony says, gulping down a spoon of his pasta and instantly regretting it as it sears his throat going down, "because you don't look a day over thirteen." He bats his eyes and grins playfully and manages to duck Steve's shove. Things have changed, a lot more than he'd expected, since that afternoon in the library back in school. Other things, though, have stayed the same. And they're the important ones, aren't they? Things like their friendship. Six years later and they still make each other laugh like crazy. "So what's new with you? Don't tell me you've gone and got a gal in the six months since I saw you last?" Tony asks, and this time he waits before having another spoonful. "This is actually good, by the way. Who are you and what have you done with Steve Rogers?"

"Oh, shut up," Steve mumbles, and then he shakes his head. "Girls aren't exactly interested in fellas with a list of medical problems longer than their diaries, in case you haven't noticed." He says it with a slight chuckle, but he looks away, and when he turns back there's a ghost of something forlorn, almost wistful in his eyes. "Not that I'm any good with the ladies to begin with."

"Come off it," Tony says, with a slight frown, because he's never considered it before, has he? Steve, with a girlfriend named something like Marjorie or Anne, a girlfriend he'd take out on dates and dance with at parties. Steve, marrying someone and having kids and settling down in a little house somewhere. Now that it's in his mind, that image of Steve with his arms draped around a little blonde thing surrounded by tiny mini-Steves, he kind of feels sick. "Sure they're all swooning about you. You probably just don't notice, 'cause you're sitting there sketching all the damn time." But his voice is hollow, and he could chalk it up to his regular fear of change except he's not exactly scared of the future, is he? Just a future that looks like that.

A future where there's no place for Tony in it, because he's known ever since that first almost-hookup at that party that he wasn't ever going to do the whole marry-and-make-babies schtick. Or the whole love schtick, either, because it has a pretty lousy track record when it comes to the Stark family. Tony looks at his parents' marriage and thinks he'd be better off not dragging some poor girl down with him and having a kid he'd eventually mess up, knowing him, thank you very much. Steve, though, he's different. He's-- well, he's not buff or super tall, but that shouldn't matter when Steve's the kinda guy every girl probably dreams of (not that he'd know anything about that). Steve is brave and kind and warm. He's the type to drop girls off home and ask permission to kiss them on the third date., the kind of guy who'd be nice to your friends and impress your parents and make you feel like you're living a fairytale. Who in their right mind wouldn't want Steve?

"Tony?" Steve asks, then, and he realizes he's been staring at him, lost in his thoughts as he was. He blinks a couple of times and shakes his head, the blonde staring amusedly at him all the while. "You okay?"

Tony forces a smile to his face and tries not to think about how his heart's racing all of a sudden. "Just-- just thinking about how good this mac and cheese is." Steve narrows his eyes, clearly suspicious, but doesn't push, and so they eat in comfortable silence. Or, well, comfortable for Steve, at least. Because all Tony can think about is how he is so very, definitely, completely, abso-fuckin'-lutely screwed.

 

Jarvis dies and Tony doesn't leave his room for weeks. He watches the sky cloud over and rain and flash bright with lightning; he watches September fade into October from his bedroom window; and when he takes his pencil to paper and tries to create nothing seems to come out right. He stays in bed all day, not changing out of his clothes for days at a time because showing takes too much energy and he has none of that at the moment, and he drinks and drinks until he's exhausted every last bottle of expensive whiskey stashed in his room. He looks at his bedroom ceiling and scoffs at his past self for thinking he'd grown up, because he's never felt more than a little boy than he does now. The only difference is he doesn't have a pair of warm, caring hands to tuck him in any more. The thought just makes him burrow under the covers further.

He doesn't know what day it is exactly, only that it's mid-October, when there's a knocking at his door. He's been undisturbed for far too long, really. The maids had given up after the first couple weeks of this, and if his parents had even noticed he'd been bedbound lately they sure didn't bother to try and cheer him up. So when he ignores it and is rewarded with another round of persistent knocking, he trudges out of bed and isn't completely surprised to see Steve on the other side of the door. (He may be depressed, or grieving, or whatever you want to call it, but he's still a genius). "Jeez, Tony," Steve says, and he feels overexposed under the boy's scrutiny.

And so Steve comes in, because he's here now and he can't exactly leave him standing there, though that does seem appealing, and he shuts the door behind him with a loud click. He's aware it's a mess: in fact, it's a veritable hovel, and he doesn't miss Steve's expression as he looks around. "You aren't here to judge me, are you?" he asks, but the venom is absent in his question. Frankly, he doesn't have enough in him to muster up one of his trademark biting remarks.

"I couldn't let you waste away in here," Steve says, and he looks the picture of concern as he sizes Tony up. "I tried calling, and they just told me you were working. What the hell, Tony?"

"Jarvis died," Tony says, and he's come to terms with it, it's not like he hasn't had enough time to get used to this new, bleak version of reality, so why are his hands shaking?

Steve lets out a long, weary sigh. "I'm sorry, Tones," he murmurs, and there's a hand around his shoulder, now, and he has to stop himself from trembling so that Steve doesn't think he's a bigger mess than he really is. "But you didn't let me wallow in my misery after-- after my mom passed, did you?"

Tony has to crack a smile at that, even if it physically hurts his face muscles to do so. "If I remember right, I got you to ride every rollercoaster in Coney Island until you were about to throw up behind a dumpster."

"Exactly," Steve says, and his voice is gentle as he forces Tony to look at him. "And I'm not gonna drag you out, I swear, but I am gonna make you shower. For my sake, at least?" And so, with a sigh, Tony grabs a set of clean clothes and disappears into the ensuite bathroom. The water burns his body, makes his eyes prick with tears, and he lets it fall over him until his skin begins to turn red and wrinkly. When he emerges, clad in an old tee and a pair of shorts feeling both refreshed and exhausted, he finds Steve trying to straighten his pillows on his bed. "Oh, um-- sorry," he says, when he notices Tony watching him, "I didn't want to move anything, so I just tried to clean up where I could." And the room's still a mess, don't get him wrong, but it's a little less of a mess than it was. Some of the books tossed to the floor in a fit of rage have been stacked, the clothes on the floor have become one giant pile against the wall, and he's opened the windows so the cool fall breeze fills the room and makes the hairs on the back of his neck prick up.

"Thank you," Tony murmurs. It doesn't begin to encompass everything he's feeling. He can't exactly put into words how he knows with every fiber of his being that someone like him doesn't deserve someone like Steve, doesn't deserve someone who'll clean up after him and put his pieces back together and be a better friend than he could ever be. And maybe it's the loss still fresh in his heart. Maybe it's the grief that makes his bones and muscles and heart ache. Maybe it's how he hasn't seen Steve in so long, and now that he has, he seems almost made of gold standing in front of the window, the sunset setting his skin and hair alight. Tony can't explain it or find a scientific explanation for why it is, and normally it would bother him, but he can't bring himself to care. "Steve, can I ask you something?"

"Anything," Steve says, and his heart is racing in his chest.

"And you promise," Tony adds, every molecule in him screaming at him to shut up before he does something stupid, "that you won't hate me once I ask you?"

"I could never," Steve says, and it's the earnestness in his voice that gives him the confidence to be brave.

"Can," and he's stepping forward now, and he can see the light reflected in Steve's eyes, "can I kiss you?"

And Steve looks dazed, and for a second Tony's sure he's ruined everything, that Steve's gonna rush out of here and never come back and tell the world that he's going to hell. Then he's nodding, and Tony's stone-cold sober but he feels punch-drunk as he steps forward and presses his lips to Steve's.

And Steve is warm, so warm, so solid against his mouth; his breath comes in short waves and he tastes like Coca Cola, and when he kisses Tony back it's like the world's suddenly righted. It's not rushed or furious. It has none of the reckless, sloppy, desire-fuelled passion that has characterized all of Tony's previous experiences with kissing, but now that he's experienced this he isn't sure any of that even counted. This is the real deal, soft and chaste, Steve's chapped lips shuddering slightly as he runs a hand through Tony's hair, pulling him closer. He has a slight five o'clock shadow that brushes against Tony's skin, and it's almost grounding, in a way, a comforting realness that makes his body surge with warmth, his heart jump, his brain short-circuit and fall silent for the first time in his life.

It lasts for a minute, maybe, and then Steve pulls away, and he seems just as shocked-surprised-scared as Tony feels. And he opens his mouth, and for a second Tony hopes against hope that life's gonna take pity on him and let him have this, let him enjoy his sixty seconds of bliss, and then Steve's saying, "it ain't right, Tony," and he wants to throw up.

He doesn't, though. He sits down on his bed because he isn't sure he can stand up given how dizzy he is, and he looks at the floor because he can't bear to look at Steve and see disgust in his eyes. "I know."

"It's-- we can't--"

"I know," Tony says again, voice louder this time. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have--"

"Stop it, Tony," Steve says sharply, and all the haziness is gone from his voice all at once. "Look at me." And Tony meets his gaze, and for all the time they've known each other, there's nothing in the boy's expression that gives him any sort of clue as to what he's thinking. "Don't you dare blame yourself."

"You just said it isn't right," Tony protests, irritation flaring in his stomach, and how the fuck is this fair? "We both know it isn't, Steve. We both know I'm messed up for even asking you to-- to do that."

"Well, then, I'm messed up too," Steve says, chin jutting out defiantly. "So don't you dare say that crap about yourself."

"So what if I said it?" Tony presses, and the air is electric in his lungs when he says, "you can't honestly want to do this. You could have a future, Steve, you could have it all. You could have a girl, a wife, a family--"

"They say a lotta things are wrong," and it's like Steve hadn't heard a word he'd said. "Having a mistress. That's wrong. Drugs, stealing, murder. And people do 'em anyway."

"Exactly," Tony says, wringing his hands, "those are all bad things, Steve, just like this is--"

"Look at me and tell me that felt wrong, or bad," and Tony's done a lot of fucked-up, terrible things in his life but what he won't do is lie to Steve, so he falls silent and doesn't dare to hold his breath. "I know-- I know that it's a lot. That we won't get dates or dances or any of that stuff."

"So why do it at all? You shouldn't have to give up on true love, or whatever the hell--"

"Because of you," Steve says simply, and he's smiling, and Tony wants to scream, because he feels like he's been torn into a million pieces and Steve's here looking like he's seen paradise. "Because I'd be lying if I said I could feel that way with anyone but you."

And everything in him, every ounce of logic and rationality in him, wants to protest or to stand up and tell Steve that this was all just one big giant mistake. But his heart, goddamn it, his heart is a traitor, because his brain's screaming no and his heart's beating yes and it's all just too fucking much. Steve takes his hand, warm callused fingers brushing against Tony's pale knuckles, and logic just doesn't seem to matter anymore. For the first time in his life, Tony Stark finds himself in a situation where he can't think up a solution. He'd just never expected it to feel this good.

 

Later, he knows that he's going to look back at 1941 and think of it as a year of idealistic denial. Because Tony is a futurist through and through and he knows that war's going to roll up on their shores someday, whether that's sooner or later. They're biding their time and he knows it. But the calm before the storm is, he finds, terribly fun when you have someone to share it with. Tony sneaks into Steve's apartment every now and then, stealing kisses with the curtains drawn, holding hands in a darkened movie theater, nudging each other's feet like they're stupid teenagers (which Tony, at eighteen, still is, though he'd argue the 'stupid' part). He starts work at Stark Industries and pisses off all his superiors and earns money he doesn't really need in the first place.

And then-- and he knew it, could feel it in his bones--  _war_. Tony doesn't sleep for three days straight as new weapons orders come in and he's put to work on things too confidential to name. And when he's finally given a break, Tony doesn't go back home to pass out (though he so desperately wants to). Instead, he takes a cab to Steve's and raps at the door smartly. "Steve?" he asks, and then when there's no answer he fishes in his pocket and pulls out his key.

For a moment, he thinks Steve isn't home, and then he hears the hacking noise from the bedroom. "Steve, are you alright?" he asks, heart racing as he walks towards the sound that grates against his ears and makes cold sweat collect in his palms. He finds Steve doubled over on his bed, legs hidden under what looks like three blankets, and he's clutching his stomach as he wheezes. The sight is so painful, yet so familiar, that it just makes his heart sink as he walks over. "Steve?" he asks more cautiously, careful not to startle him.

"I'm fine," Steve mumbles, but the series of coughs that follow seem to disprove that. Tony half-walks, half-runs to the kitchen to fill up a glass of water, and Steve takes it and sips at it gratefully. When he's done, he takes a few long breaths and sighs. "Sorry."

"You should've told me you were sick," Tony says, guilt curling in his stomach. "I would've ditched work if I knew."

"Your dad woulda killed you," Steve points out, the effort making him gasp a little before he's able to continue. "Besides, I wasn't even that bad yesterday. It was just that I was out this morning, and it'd rained, and I guess that made it flare up."

"You were out when you were sick?" Tony asks, a mixture of frustration and concern in his voice. "You know you should be resting, why would you--"

Steve reaches out and grasps his hand, warm, slightly feverish skin against Tony's wrist, and the gesture is enough to shut him up. "To enlist," he murmurs, and Tony knows Steve can feel his pulse speed up almost instantly under his fingers. "'Course, they rejected me, said I'm too sick or somethin'. Ah well, I'll try again somewhere else when I feel better." His voice is nonchalant, like this was just another everyday decision, like buying eggs or doing the dishes. Tony wants to scream.

Instead, he just takes a deep breath, and says, "Steve, you don't have to fight. They're right; you  _are_  sick, and what happens once you're in Europe somewhere and they're shooting at you and you--"

"So I die," Steve says, tone casual. "So what? I'd be honored to do it, you know. Innocent people are dying too, you know, women and kids, and they don't have a choice about it, do they? I gotta do my part, Tony, I can't just sit here and do nothing."

"Maybe you can deal with your own death, but I can't," Tony says, and there's that hint of his inner child peeking through in his words. It's selfish, he knows, but he's never claimed to be a good man.

Steve is, though, and maybe that's why he doesn't call Tony out on it. He just looks away and mumbles, "I don't want to talk about it. Let's just-- let's just listen to the radio or somethin', okay?" And Tony wants to argue or protest or list a hundred reasons why he shouldn't chase after enlistment, but Steve's jaw is set in a way that reminds him that they're both equally as stubborn when push comes to shove. So he nods, turns the radio on, and leans against Steve as the music drifts over them. Steve sketches and Tony reads, and when he finally presses a goodbye kiss to the blonde's lips and promises he'll be back whenever he can, it's to rush home and storm into dinner with more purpose than he's had in awhile.

"Tony, I'm glad you're joining us for dinner," Maria says, and sure enough, Howard's there too, sitting at the head of the table for the first time in what feels like weeks. Normally, the sight of the man would be enough to send him straight to his room, mumbling something about not being hungry, but today he sits down right opposite the man and lades a heaping serving of pasta onto his plate. "What's-- are you feeling alright?" she asks.

But he ignores her words and turns to face his father, eyes blazing. "I'm enlisting," he says, and Maria gasps.

There's a moment when Tony thinks he might've just surprised the man for the first time in his life-- and indeed, his fork pauses in the air on the way to his mouth for a split second, but then his features are rearranging themselves into a set, thin line, and he scowls at Tony and says, "No, you are not."

"I'm eighteen," Tony says stubbornly, "and my birthday was in May anyway, it's a wonder I haven't been drafted as it is."

"Why do you think that is, huh, boy?" Howard snaps, setting his utensils down with a sharp clang. The air seems to drop about ten degrees in the space of ten seconds. "I didn't pull strings so you could stay out of the damn war for you to go and sign yourself up like some kind of idiot. God knows you wouldn't last a day out there."

And that, really, is the tipping point. "So that whole patriotic crap you're spewing on national television-- that's a lie, isn't it? I don't see you fighting either. Guess Stark men aren't made of iron. They're just fuckin' cowards," Tony hisses, and he thinks his mother might've mumbled something about how that's  _enough_ , Tony, or something along those lines, but the words float around him, never really registering them as he stands Howard down. "But I'm not like you, Dad. And you know, that's a good thing."

"You think I haven't been doing my part?" Howard yells, and he's loud enough that the maids bringing more food to the table stop in their tracks and scurry back into the kitchen. "While you tinker with your stupid little guns, I'm working with the people actually running this war, working on weapons that could win it for us. Don't run your mouth and talk about things you don't know a damn thing about."

"And if it came to it," Tony asks, leaning forward, and he can see the vein pulsing in Howard's forehead, now, "would you put your life on the line for the people you pretend you care about? Would you take a bullet for them? Would you die for them? I mean, you spent eighteen years not giving a damn about your own kid, so I can't expect that you'd muster up any sort of loyalty towards the people you think you're protecting--"

And then he's cut off as Howard slaps him right across the face, and he's smirking coldly at Tony even as he feels his skin stinging from the blow. "In case you forgot, boy, I did do all of that and more, during the Great War. But your ungrateful ass always thinks I'm some kind of a monster just because I never pandered to every one of your little whims and fancies. Well, Tony, you can go and run along and enlist if that's what'll help you sleep at night. But, see, I'm not as bad as you think I am. I'm going to offer you a job, you little brat, a one time only thing, of course-- you can come work with me. You'll be right in the middle of it, like you want. That sounds good to you?"

There's something like humiliation and anger and abject terror turning into a tepid mix inside his stomach. The pasta lays untouched in his plate, and Tony just raises an eyebrow and asks, coolly enough that he hopes it distracts Howard from the tumultuous rush of emotion inside, "Why in the world would you want me to do that?"

Instantly, he regrets asking that, because there's a glint to Howard's eyes that Tony only remembers from his childhood, memories of being handed a glass of whiskey and being told to drink, of standing in Howard's study with Stane and Howard and other nameless, faceless associates tittering amongst themselves, and he couldn't have been more than  _nine_. Tony feels nine once again as Howard whispers, so soft only he can hear it, "because you're a coward, Anthony, and I know it as well as you do. You're too scared of dying to ever pick up a gun and shoot at a Nazi. In the end, you're not the kind of guy to make the sacrifice play. I don't look at you and see a man, and I don't think you do, either, when you wake up every morning and look at yourself in the mirror. So be the smart guy everyone says you are and take the job, will you? At least you'll save some of your pride."

Later, he'll get drunk enough to throw up everything he'd eaten all day until the bile burns his throat, and it'll feel like he's purging every hissed word that echoes in his head from his memory. Right now, though, he doesn't look Howard in the eye when he mutters, "fine." His father smiles a smile that's all teeth and no lips, like he's won, and maybe... maybe he has.

 

  
There's a project in the works, and it's going to be big. He can feel it every time he sees his father and Erskine and every other high-level military official discuss it in quiet voices. It's why it surprises him so much when Howard and Erskine break off from their huddled group in the corner and walk towards him. "Your friend, Steve," is the first thing his dad says, and he blinks. "Is he a soldier?"

"He tried to enlist several times, but he was rejected. Um, because of his health problems," Tony says. "Why?"

Erskine smiles toothily. "Several times, huh? Would you say he's a good man, this Steven?"

"The best," Tony says honestly, and then adds, with only a bit of hesitation, "the first time we met-- this was back in boarding school, when I was eleven-- he was saving me from a group of bullies twice his size. Just rushed right in and tried to take them down." This seems to strike a chord with Erskine, even as Howard scoffs; but they don't say any more, walking off into whatever high-clearance area of the building they go to to talk about top-secret projects of the super-soldier serum variety, and Tony figures nothing would come of the conversation (except, perhaps, Howard thinking he's even weaker than he really is, which can't be helped). But the next time he sees Steve, it's not in his apartment, but in the lab, two weeks later, and he's engaged in what looks like an interesting discussion with Professor Erskine. Tony sidles up to them and grins. "What's new, Stevie-oh?"

Erskine raises an eyebrow at him. "We were just talking about how I think Steve would be a great candidate for the program."

And it was one thing to tell the guy that Steve's a great person, because it's not like that's a lie, but it's another to have inadvertently turned him into a guinea pig for this experiment Erskine and his father think's going to win the war. "No," Tony says, and when both Steve and Erskine turn to him questioningly, he repeats himself loud enough that some of the other scientists working in the room glance up momentarily. "No way. Is it... I mean, no offense, sir, but is it even safe? The odds are questionable, to say the least, and Steve can't just sign himself up for something that could kill him."

"Tony," Steve begins, a crease beginning to grow between his brows, but he isn't done.

"I mean, there are hundreds of other men who'd be willing to be used as test subjects," Tony rambles, shoving his hands in his pockets so that his fidgeting doesn't become apparent. "I could give you a few names, or you could just head over to my old school or to MIT or to any other place with a bunch of young guys, I'm sure they'd be honored to help, right?"

" _Tony_ ," Steve says again, "I'm not scared, it's fine, and besides... I already said I'd do it."

"You said what?" Tony snaps, and turns the full force of his anger on Erskine. The calm, placid smile on his face serves only to infuriate him further. "Does he know about the side effects? About what could go wrong?" Yet even as he says this, he knows he's fighting a losing battle. There's no changing his mind when Steve's set on something, and it looks like this is one of those things. And so it's another week before Tony finds himself in the room where everything might change, watching Steve get harnessed into the machine from behind a railing, his stomach twisting itself into knots.

It all happens so quickly. One moment Steve's screaming, and the next, he's tall and muscular and apparently the perfect human specimen, what the fuck? Tony supposes he should be glad the thing didn't kill him, but he's more distracted by Steve-- more specifically, how he looks like a movie star crossed with an athlete all at once, and Jesus, when did he get abs? He's sure he's staring, which is maybe why the whole guns-and-fighting debacle catches him completely by surprise. And then Erskine's dead and Steve's running away and the whole thing's gone to shit, and Tony just knows that if Steve had a reputation for picking fights and getting himself into bad situations before the serum, well, things are about to get even more dangerous.  
The bright side is, Tony thinks, in an effort to stop himself from worrying, Steve's always been hot to him, but now he's being positively overwhelmed with eye candy. He can't help but wonder why he was opposed to this whole idea in the first place.

 

In the end, Steve isn't even the one to get himself in trouble. In fact, he's out there being a veritable paragon of everything good and just, selling bonds as Captain America (and Tony'd laughed when he'd seen the costume, but it was weirdly cute all the same). In the end, it's Tony who's walking down the road one moment, and being bundled into a car the next, a gunshot ringing in the air. He struggles and kicks and pushes, though there's something wet against his skin, seeping through his shirt, and he only has enough time to touch his chest and see blood before he's blacking out.

When he comes to, his head aches something nasty, and he's had some pretty awful hangovers but nothing as bad as this. His throat is uncomfortably dry, his neck is throbbing from the uncomfortable position he must've passed out in, and it takes him a few seconds to process how the ache in his stomach is hunger instead of a stab wound or something of the sort. His eyes are watery and sting when he forces them open, and the room (if it even is a room) he's being held in is so dimly lit that it takes him a while to identify the smudges around him as crates. All of these facts quickly become irrelevant as he looks down and sees his chest covered with bandages. It's then that the pain hits him with full force; and if he was standing up he's sure he'd collapse to the floor after a few seconds of bearing it. Every breath burns, and his brain, along with the headache, seems dizzy, oxygen-starved, even. He can feel his heartbeat loud in his ears, and he doesn't have to be a doctor to know that that's not anywhere close to a healthy rhythm. He forces it out of his mind, though, because he knows he's about two seconds from a panic attack, and if his heart, as he suspects, is already weak, well-- that would just put him in more danger.

He's bound to the chair he's sitting in, and when he tries to wiggle his legs he feels the dull ache in his leg intensify so sharply that the only reason he isn't screaming is the gag in his mouth. Something must be broken, then, which doesn't bode well for his chances of escaping (he almost laughs at this, because considering the state of his heart he'd probably go into cardiac arrest the second he tries breaking out of here). What's even worse is that when he's finally able to make out the writing on the crates, he's able to identify it as German-- and the weight markings are in metric, which means there's a high chance they're not even in America. His pulse spikes as Tony glances around frantically, desperate for anything that could help him cut through these ropes tied tightly across his limbs or at least give him an idea as to where he is and what day it is, but there's nothing. The place-- which he thinks might be a warehouse-- is large and cavernous and completely empty, save for those goddamn crates. Tony is stuck, however little he'd like to admit it.

Tony squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to think about what they might've done to his chest while he was asleep and how he's miles away from home and how nobody's going to even notice he's gone for a while, at least. He definitely does not think about what they're going to do to him, how they might be planning his torture this very moment, how he knows he's more useful to them alive given his high clearance and his technology skills. Instead, Tony thinks of Steve. Steve's warm hands, bigger now that he's been enhanced, curling around his wrists. Steve's breath, warm and Coke-scented as he whispers, "you're going to be fine, Tones." Steve's eyes, just as blue no matter how big his muscles have gotten lately, sincere, crinkled at the edges with what could be a concerned smile. "We're going to get you out, Tony, just you wait," Steve says, and he'd laugh at himself and tell him he's going crazy if hearing voices didn't stop him from completely breaking down, at this point.

  
He's not sure how long he panics; only that all thoughts of Steve are quickly dispersed and replaced with furious terror when the doors to the warehouse swing open and blinding light filters in all at once. When he reopens his eyes, it's to see two tall, stocky figures dressed in what looks like modified military uniforms approach him. "Stark," the biggest one says in a thick German accent, and when he draws closer Tony can see that his eyes are a cold, mottled green. "You're awake."

Tony manages to spit out the gag then, and pants for a couple seconds before glaring at them with as much viciousness as he can muster. "What the fuck did you do to me?" he gasps, looking down at his chest and then turning his gaze back up to them. "What the hell's in my chest?"

The men laugh amongst themselves, as if his anguish is some kind of inside joke, and then finally the other man calms down enough to say, "these Americans are always so ungrateful. Without that battery powering your heart, Stark, you would be dead right now. How does that make you feel?" and then he's guffawing again, and Tony glances down frantically, and with the light streaming in from outside he can make out a thin wire leading out of the bandages on his chest, and he follows it until it connects to what indeed is a battery of some sort that's set on the floor right next to him. For the first time in his life, Tony feels truly vulnerable.

"What do you want?" Tony snaps, and it's a small miracle that his voice doesn't tremble from the effort. 

"Weapons," the first man says simply, and his blood runs cold. It's not like he hadn't suspected it, not like it caught him by surprise, but his captors admitting it makes it all the more real. He's stuck and his only options are arming the Nazis or death.  _Whoop-de-fuckin'-doo._  "We've heard you're a prodigy, Stark, so it's time to prove it. Build us--" and there's a silence then, and the two converse with each other in German until they stop and the man continues, "ah, I think you call it nuclear weapons, yes."

"That's impossible," Tony snaps, "our side doesn't have them either."

There's a kick to his injured leg and Tony howls, loud and piercing, and all the men do is titter. "But you're working on them," the second man says, "don't lie to us, Stark. We'll give you all the materials you need, don't worry. And see, we're not all bad people, yeah? If you give us a bomb, we'll let you go."

He's being set up to fail, Tony knows. It's not like he knows how to make a goddamn nuke, and even if he does, he'd rather die than hand one over to these monsters. It's not even like they'd ever let him go-- he suspects that if the whole bomb thing doesn't work out, he's going to be tortured some more and then coerced into making something else, something not as lethal but definitely not tame, something they know he  _can_  make. Yes, there's about a 0.00001% chance of him getting out of this alive, but Tony's never been a careful man, and a plan starts to brew in the recesses of his mind. "I'll do it," Tony says, and he knows he's caught them by surprise, knows they'd expected far more resistance. They smile, and their teeth glint in the light. Tony thinks of Steve and of his apartment and of his mac and cheese, and Tony prays.

 

The first thing he does is get rid of the battery and replace it with something smaller. An arc reactor. The technology is weak at best, and Tony knows that his lifetime's been extended for only a week, if he's lucky. Still, it buys him time, time that he spends drafting plans for something that looks like it's straight out of a science fiction book. The suit-- if it can even be called that-- is going to be unwieldy and very likely to kill him, because he's bound by his injuries and the rudimentary equipment he's given and the scientific developments of his time, but he knows he might just pull it off. So he builds, and builds, and builds.

 

  
A guard stops by twice a day to give him food. The meals are disgusting and the nutritious equivalent of a piece of paper, but they're just enough to keep him alive. When he's being handed his sixth meal, he asks what day it is. There's a moment of hesitation when the man replies, "May 3rd, 1942."

So he's been gone about a month, by now. It's still not a truly concerning amount of time-- Howard is notorious for not giving a damn about him, and he probably just assumed he's off getting drunk somewhere once he stopped showing up to work, and Steve's too busy touring the country and being the All-American Hero the world apparently needs to figure out that Tony's been kidnapped. Which is fine. It's fine. He can make it out by himself. 

 

  
He builds some more. On what is probably May 13th, the two men who'd first talked to him drop by, presumably to check that he's actually building a nuke, and not, you know, a machine that's going to hopefully get him out of this goddamn warehouse. He's thankful that they're too technologically illiterate to spot the difference. The days go by, and Tony thinks he's almost done. 

  
When he completes the suit, he counts back the days and realizes, with a start, that it's halfway into June. He'd turned nineteen without even realizing it, and the thought weighs down on him even as he shakes it off, pretending that he doesn't mind that he's not curled up with Steve right now, blowing out the candles on a homemade cake that's piled with enough frosting to give him diabetes. Instead, he starts strapping himself into the suit. The armor that goes around his arms and shoulders alone is so heavy he almost buckles under the weight of it, and it takes every ounce of determination he has in him to stay standing. Once he's used to it, the rest of it is comparatively easy. He has to buffer the leg armor with a lot of cloth stripped from bags of material and his shirt so that he doesn't jostle the fracture, and it still doesn't stop him from yelping slightly when he fits the metal over it, but when he's done he's standing in hundreds of pounds of bulletproof protection, and he's  _armed_. It's not winning any prizes for sophistication or aesthetics, but it could take down a lot of people, if Tony's math is right (which it usually is), and that's good enough for him.

The next time the guard comes in to hand him his food, he's ready. He whacks the guy over the head with one arm, which enough to knock him out. Tony almost feels guilty as he steps over him and out of the warehouse, but then again, they did kidnap him for something like a couple of months. Something tells him he's entirely justified in firing at the men that come running towards him, and once they've all been taken out, he lumbers into the grounds of what looks like an entire complex of warehouses like the one he'd been trapped in and other buildings that are more architecturally complex but just as ugly. He's got about five minutes, he thinks, before the whole place figures out what's happened. Five minutes is enough time for him to circle the warehouse and spot what just might be part of the large gate surrounding the place in between two tall buildings.

Then he's being shot at, and he panics for a second before remembering that he's safe in here. He waits till the men have run out of rounds, and then unleashes what's technically a complex chemical reaction but what just looks like cool fire at them. Then he's making a break for it, and all hell breaks loose.

In the end, he's so close, just twenty feet or so from the gate. Then something hot is being focused right at his arm, and he screams as it begins to melt his armor. It's thick enough that it doesn't liquefy completely, which is good because it would literally dissolve his arm, but the heat is enough to burn his skin anyway. He's no match for whatever the hell that is, Tony realizes. It's now or never.

He'd built thrusters into the suit as an emergency measure, but he'd hoped he'd never have to use them. They'd get him in the air, sure, but they also had the fun little side effect of completely draining the suit's power, which meant that if he didn't make it out far enough he'd be completely stranded. Now, though, he realizes he has no choice: another ten seconds and the armor's going to melt through completely, and he does not want to experience that. So he sends out a little prayer, and hits the button, and then he's flying.

He has to admit, it feels amazing at first. He's soaring high into the air, the Nazi soldiers quickly growing smaller until they're just specks against the green grass of the complex. The rush of wind helps cool his arm down, and it whips through the hair exposed by the helmet. Tony lets out a whoop, tumbling through the air as he watches the countryside pass him by down below. It's exhilarating: Tony has ridden a motorcycle before, and he's certainly driven cars past the speed limit with the top down and the wind in his face, but none of those experiences quite compare to flying.

Then the power goes out, and it suddenly isn't all that amazing. Tony's laughter turns into a long, embarrassingly high-pitched shriek as he starts falling; the ground's getting closer and he's hurtling towards it at terminal velocity and there isn't a thing he can do to stop it. No parachute will make a difference when he weighs this much, and the odds of him even surviving this crash are slim to none. All he can do is hope to land somewhere soft and forgiving. The likelihood of the soldiers pursuing him to his landing site is a variable he refuses to consider. He's gotta be out of the woods now. He has to be.

Except he isn't, in the literal sense of the word. He's zooming down into what is definitely a forest, and he has a few seconds in which he hopes that the underbrush cushions his landing before his world goes frighteningly pitch-black.

 

He's awoken by large, strong hands rapping at his clavicles slightly. "Tony?" says a voice, low with anxiety and apprehension, and it seems familiar in a way he can't quite put his finger on in his current state. He gets about a second of reprieve before the pain sets in at full force, and the only thing that comforts him as he lets out a guttural scream is that he's not dead. Which isn't much of a comfort at all, come to think of it: he'd much rather be dead than feel the excruciating nature of what has to be multiple broken bones and even more cuts and gashes. So he focuses on the voice, tries to keep himself from blacking out again. "Tony, can you open your eyes for me?"

For a second he thinks he can't, or that maybe the impact's rendered him blind, somehow. Then-- with a significant effort, but he manages it-- he's squeezing his eyes open, and the bright light makes him let out a whimper before the man next to him's holding up his hand like a visor of some sort. It filters the sunlight enough that he blinks a few times and the man comes into focus. Instantly, his heart speeds up. It can't be him, it isn't him: he's in America, all the way across the Atlantic, and Tony may want him to be here but not enough that he'd give into hallucinations. "Who are you?" Tony gasps, and if he could he'd lift up his arm to check whether the person was, in fact, corporeal. With the light dancing on his hair, on his skin, on the outfit that seems far too like  _his_  for Tony's liking-- well, he can't really be sure.

"It's me," the man says, and there's something broken in his voice when he presses his hand to Tony's face. "It's Steve. I'm here, Tony. We're getting you out."

"I don't believe you," says Tony stubbornly. "How the hell did you wind up here if you're on a tour in the States?"

By the look of Not-Steve's face, he wants to protest or dodge the question, but he manages to pass the first test all the same. Only the real Steve would know that Tony would never cooperate until all his questions were answered, and so he lets out a sigh and says, "I was in Europe performing for some of our troops stationed here. Fuck, I didn't even know you were gone until someone told me a woman back in New York had reported seeing you being taken to the police. They followed your tracks and realized that you weren't far off from the camp I was at, but they didn't want to do anything-- said they'd be outnumbered. And, well, I was furious, Tony. I stole a fuckin' plane and was about to come bust you out when I saw this, um, contraption in the air. And then I saw you crash and you weren't waking up and I was so scared-- I'm so sorry, Tony, I should've been here sooner, I should've saved you--"

"You did," Tony says, and there's a weight lifting from his shoulders and a warmth collecting in his chest because, yeah, this is  _his_  Steve. "You're saving me now, Steve, so don't you dare beat yourself up over this. I'm fine, see?"

"You're starving," Steve points out, a frown on his face, "you're severely injured, and you look like you're about to pass out."

"Don't be sarcastic, that's my job," Tony mumbles, letting out a small laugh that instantly turns into retching when he realizes that laughing isn't such a good idea with broken ribs. "And when did you start rambling?"

"It-- it'd gotten awfully quiet without you, Tony," and Steve sounds like he's about to burst into tears, and Tony may be on the brink of death but he's not about to see the man he lo--cares about cry over him.

"No, shh, Steve," Tony mumbles, even as he feels himself about to tap out. "I'm alright, see? I trust you. You're here, so I'm not gonna be goin' anywhere. 'M safe with you."

"Tony?" His eyes close for a second, and when he opens them again it's to see Steve's face, pale with concern, swimming over him. "Tony! Stay with me, don't pass out, please--"

"S'alright, Steve," Tony says, fighting to even stay lucid for another few seconds. Every breath is agony, yet when he looks up, he can feel his mouth curving into a slight smile. "You're gonna keep me safe. I'm not scared."

 

 

The next time he wakes up, it's not in a warehouse or in a German forest, but in what seems like a US army medical wing. He looks down and discovers that he's more bandage than human, at this point, and the pain's subsided to a dull ache that only intensifies when he tries to move (which is surprisingly hard, given how two out of four limbs, as well as his chest, are immobilized). "Um, hello?" he asks, and his voice is so scratchy that he physically winces.

"Tony!" Steve says, and he appears in the periphery of his vision. He realizes that Steve's been here all along, probably keeping a bedside vigil, which makes him weirdly happy despite his neutral expression. "How're you feeling?"

"Like I want some water," Tony admits. What follows next is a lot of Steve fussing over him and trying to get him to eat nasty canned food because apparently he's severely undernourished, as if he isn't aware of that, really, Steve. When he finally gives up after Tony pushes away a half-eaten can of beans, he settles back into the chair and puts on an expression so conflicted that Tony has to ask, "what's wrong, Steve?"

Instantly, that expression changes to one of guilt. "Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?" Steve mumbles, and the laugh that follows is fake, terse. "It's fine, Tony. We can talk after you're feeling better."

"I'm feeling better," Tony says, "now out with it."

Again, it's a testament to how well Steve knows him that he doesn't try to derail the conversation or change the topic. "Tony," he says, and again with that guilt, "this was my fault."

Not what he was expecting. "What?" Tony says, letting out a little scoff. "They wanted me to build them a nuke, Steve. It had nothing to do with you."

"But it could've," Steve persists, "because let's face it, Tony, Erskine didn't die of natural causes. People are after the serum, they're after me, and you were there with me, when I was injected with it. And they probably know that we're-- how close we are. That puts you at a lot of risk. You're a target. Because of me." He runs a hand through his hair with enough force that he's practically tugging at it, and he can barely look at Tony when he continues. "I can't do this, can't-- can't be with you," and his voice is lowered now, so quiet they're practically whispering, "when I know that this could happen again. What happens when they want you to work on a replica of the serum for them? What happens when they take you knowing I'd come after me? 'Cause I would, Tony, I'd do anything for you, and they'd try and exploit that."

"What are you saying," Tony says, except he knows what Steve's saying. He's not asking: he's waiting, and he knows he isn't going to like what's to come.

"I'm saying," and here Steve takes a long, shaky breath, like he's steeling himself for what he's going to say next, "I'm saying we should keep our distance for awhile. Try an' stay away from each other, just until the war's over. I can't put you in danger, Tony, you know that. I wouldn't live with myself if something happened again. This is the best way--"

"This is the  _stupidest_  way to solve this problem," Tony interrupts, anger quickly replacing all the affection that his heart had been holding, "and you know it, Steve. What the hell? If I'm gonna be kidnapped, they're gonna do it whether you're on speaking terms with me or not."

"But if there's any chance," says Steve, and he isn't crying but his eyes are definitely wet, and fuck him for making Tony feel like an asshole when he's the one being broken up with in the first place, "that this keeps you safe, I gotta take it. Even if that means losing you."

"Have you considered that I'm losing you too?" Tony says. "I'm losing someone I l--"

And again, that word's on his lips, and this time it burns like whiskey when he swallows it down. He can see Steve's heart break in his very eyes. "I'm sorry, Tony," is all he says, and then he's gone. Tony wishes he'd never been here at all.

 

And life goes on. Tony is discharged from Medical after swearing up and down that he won't get himself into any trouble, and he goes straight back to work and pretends that nothing's changed. The first day, he's welcomed back by Howard with a clap on the back and a smile. "Good to have you back, son," he says, and Tony forces a smile to his face in return. Steve, he hears, got what he wanted. He's a soldier now, leading his own group of men, men that quickly become his friends and laugh and joke around with him just like Tony once did. They stop talking entirely, save for quick, minute-long conversations when absolutely necessary, and so Tony's relegated to watching the man from behind a mug of coffee or a newspaper, trying to convince himself that he doesn't miss him.

But every time Steve's on a mission destroying HYDRA bases, Tony can't sleep until he's back. The anxiety keeps him up till daybreak, his hands shaking as he tries to focus on new weapon plans. Even when he knows Steve is safe, getting treated for minor injuries or sleeping in his own tent, it's not like sleeping is a particularly desirable option. When he does manage to fall asleep, he's quickly awoken by nightmares. They're often about the period of time that he was captured for, which is understandable, Tony thinks. But sometimes, they're worse. Sometimes, he sees Steve dying, Steve bleeding out on the floor, telling him he could've done something to save him. Those are the ones that make him stumble outside and throw up in the grass and leave a cold sweat clinging to his skin even once he's retched up everything in his stomach.

Sometimes he thinks Steve knows. He sees Steve narrowing his eyes suspiciously at him when he leaves his tent for breakfast and sees Tony sitting outside, reading and pretending that he'd actually gotten some sleep. He knows that Steve must recognize the dark circles around Tony's eyes and the fact that he's barely gained any weight since he broke out of the warehouse. But he's not Steve's to worry about anymore, and both of them know it, so they do what Steve wants and they keep their distance.

So Tony does what he does best: throws himself into work with no end in sight. The sheer rush of creating has always cheered him up, and now that he has nothing-- no one, rather-- keeping him from spending all his time doing just that, his colleagues really take notice of him. He's in his element, here, so much that when Howard leaves to return to America to handle something or the other that's so classified even Tony isn't allowed to know much about it, they barely notice the difference.

It's while he's working that one of the men Howard works with comes running in. He jumps at the sound, almost dropping the wires he was fiddling with in his hands. "Jesus, Sir," he mutters, "you ever heard of lab safety? This is sensitive engineering right here." When no reply comes, he finally looks up from his work and raises his eyebrow at the man, who, despite his grim, serious-looking features, looks comically shocked. "What's happened?"

The man wrings his hands and then says, "I was to tell you that.. ah, I'm so sorry, Mr Stark--"

"That's my father," says Tony, a hint of annoyance seeping through.

"Your father's dead," the scientist says, and this time he really does drop the wires. "The General just got word, uh-- a car accident, he told me. Your dad and your mom were both--" and maybe it's the look on Tony's face, or the fact that he hasn't said or done anything, or in fact moved an inch since the revelation, that makes the man lose his cool so quickly. "I'm so sorry, Mr Stark, I know how much Howard meant--"

"Thanks," Tony says, standing up so quickly that he feels dizzy, "uh, thank you for telling me, Sir," and then he's bolting right out of the lab, and the door's swinging shut with a bang, and maybe he's just imagining it but people are sending him pitying looks--  _do they know, does everyone know?--_ and all he can think to do is run to his sleeping quarters and sit down on his bed and stare straight ahead, not really seeing anything, his mind going a hundred miles per minute. Tony is self-aware enough to know that he's emotionally stunted, which is probably why he can't even bring himself to feel sad. (Though he is, probably, somewhere deep inside of him that he refuses to acknowledge). Mostly, he's just angry. Because-- what the hell? How does something like this just  _happen_? Is he horrible enough that everyone he's ever considered family, no matter how grudgingly, has to be taken from him in the span of, what, a month?

He doesn't know how long he sits there, only that when someone enters it's well into the night. "Fuck off," Tony says, uncaring that he might've just swore at a superior. "Leave me the fuck alone."

"It's me," says Steve, and that pisses him off even more. 

"Yeah?" Tony asks, and he's standing up, now, and his muscles seize from the sudden action even if he barely even registers the pain. "Well, what the fuck do you want, Steve? To say sorry? Because you can save it. You barely knew the guy, and it's not like he's worth mourning anyway."

"Don't say that," says Steve, and Tony's ready to lash out again, except then he's raising his arm in surrender, and one hand is clutched around a bottle of what looks like cheap vodka. It's not something he'd willingly choose to drink at any other opportunity, but it catches his attention all the same. "I know, Tony. I wasn't gonna come here to... to console you, or anything. Just thought you'd appreciate not being alone. For old time's sake, yeah?" 

Then he's pouring Tony and himself a shot each, and he downs it before Steve even picks his up. "Let's do this," Tony says, voice cold, and it's only once he's far more intoxicated that he allows himself to lean against Steve, the first form of physical contact beyond nurses changing his bandages that he's had since-- well, since Steve ended whatever this is.  _Was_. He doesn't cry, because his parents don't deserve it, not like Jarvis did. Instead, he shivers (he does not  _shake_  or  _tremble_ or nearly have an anxiety attack, no matter what Steve thinks) and doesn't speak and lets Steve's voice, mumbling about his missions and fights he's been in and stories of growing up in Brooklyn, lull him to sleep. 

When he wakes up, the first thing he does is throw up. The second is to realize that Steve's gone, leaving behind nothing but the stench of alcohol and a note on his bed. Part of him is tempted to burn it, but it's  _Steve_ , so he picks it up and reads. 

_I'm sorry. I know you don't want me to be sorry they're gone, but I am anyway-- not for them, but because you have to go through this. I'm sorry we can't be together. I'm sorry things are so bad that I have to tell you I still care through a stupid note. -- SR_

Tony scoffs, throws up again, and pockets the note. If he finds his fingers reaching for it every time his thoughts stray from science into dangerous feelings territory, well, it's not like anyone's going to know. 

 

It's 1945 and the war is going strong and Tony'd stupidly thought that things would be okay. He's never claimed to be a good person, knows there's no way he's going to end up in Heaven, if there even is such a thing: and yet he'd thought, somehow, that he deserved a somewhat happy ending, at least. He may not have any family left, but Steve is untouchable. Steve is too good to die, and if it came down to it, shouldn't it be him instead? God knows nobody would miss him. 

 _It's not fair it's not fucking fair_ is what he thinks, and Steve's in a plane filled with bombs and it's headed straight for the Arctic ocean. "Tony," Steve's voice crackles through the headset, and even with the crappy connection he can hear the resignation in his voice. "Be good, will ya?"

"You don't have to do this," Tony snaps, and in that moment he hates Steve more than he's ever hated anyone in his life. Because there were other solutions, damn it, he's sure he could've found one if there was time, if they had  _time_ \-- and it all comes down to time, doesn't it? Because he has seconds left with Steve and this is how they're spending it, still fighting until the last breath. "Steve, I--" 

"It's okay, Tony," Steve says soothingly, and it strikes him that Steve's comforting Tony even though he's the one dying. He was always the better man between them. The  _best_. "Live it up for me. Go and get your Nobel prize and be on magazine covers and get a girlfriend, and, I dunno, a dog?" He tries for a laugh, but the air is cold and Tony's pulse is accelerating at dangerous speeds and nothing about this situation is even  _remotely_ funny. 

What he wants to say is that Tony doesn't want a girlfriend, or a dog, or fame or fortune. He wants Steve, with him, alive, kissing him with his arms thrown around Tony's neck. But of course he doesn't say that, because what good will it do, now? 

"You know that's a one way trip, Rogers," is all he can manage. 

"I know," Steve murmurs. "I know this is the right thing to do, Tony, and you do too."

"Fuck the right thing," Tony says. 

"There's the spirit--" and then Steve's  _gone_ , and the dot on the map that's supposed to be his plane flickers once, twice, and goes out. 

Tony loses it. "Steve?" he asks, voice loud and sharp, "Steve, that's not funny, Steve, are you fucking there--"

He rips the headset off and lets his head fall right into his arms. He hears the sound of sobs, shaky and broken, in his ears. It's only hours later that he realizes they were his. 

 

Tony keeps looking for him.

He finds the watch Steve had given him, all those years ago back when he'd turned twelve. He'd long since retired it, after the straps had gotten to be too small for him, but now he extends it until it fits comfortably around his wrist, the metal face cool against his skin. He watches it tick the hours forward until he realizes it's been  _years_. The war's over, people have moved on--

And Tony is still, for all purposes, stuck in that ice right with Steve. 

It's not what he would've wanted, Tony knows, but he's not here anymore. That's not  _his_ call to make. 

 

He searches. 

 

And searches. 

 

There's a bottle of expensive whiskey on his table, gifted to him by some business partner or the other. He stares a hole in it for hours, pours himself a glass, and then abruptly tosses it down the drain. He's not going to fall apart when Steve's still out there, somewhere, just waiting for Tony to save him. 

 

He searches some more. 

 

He comes back to the suit he built, after awhile. The years haven't just made him older; he's smarter, too, and knows enough to make his creation do a whole lot more than get him out of a Nazi warehouse complex. He's not trying to be a hero. That had never been what he'd intended to do, when he'd first stepped inside the cool exterior of what the press would start calling Iron Man. No, he's just trying to help, to do something  _good_. He thinks Steve would be proud. 

 

In the end, he never stops searching. 

 

It's 1960 when he gets the call. He's in a board meeting (turns out he actually has to  _go_ to these things; who knew?), and so when his secretary sticks her head in the door and mouths 'really important call, sorry' at him, ignores the dirty looks and steps out of the room to take it, thankful to escape the probing questions for at least a minute. "Hello?" Tony asks. 

"We found something, Mr Stark," says a voice. He doesn't recognize it, but that doesn't matter.  _We found something_ can only mean one thing. Can only mean  _Steve_. "He's unstable, but alive. We had to take him to SI Medical facilities in Britain. He'll recover, but I'm not sure how he's going to deal with the fact that it's been fifteen years, Mr Stark."

"I'll handle that," Tony says, and then he's hanging up. He's not sure how he manages to get to his plane, only that it involved getting at least a dozen speeding tickets, and when he's safely buckled up he can't do anything but stare anxiously at the wall, mentally trying to prepare himself for this. Time passes fast, now that he's done fifteen years of waiting, and before he knows it he's sitting next to Steve, and fuck, he looks exactly the same--

He's still cold to the touch. Tony feels almost like a stranger as he runs his hands gently through Steve's hair, because he's old now, has gone a decade and a half alone, has worked and partied and  _lived_ , and here Steve is, looking like a day hasn't passed since he was swallowed up by the icy depths of the ocean. Surely, there's a scientific explanation for it, and Tony would normally hunt for it in a desperate attempt to not think about how his heart's hammering painfully fast against his ribcage except Steve's opening his eyes, and fuck-- he could never forget that shade of blue, especially not now that he's positively drowning in it. 

"Tony?" he asks. For all intents and purposes, it's just an ordinary spring day. The curtains are half-drawn, and outside the English countryside is beautiful, with blue skies for miles and the soft chirps of birds that they can still hear despite the reinforced glass windows. But this, Tony knows, must be terrifying for Steve, because one moment he'd been ready to die and the next he's here, with his once-boyfriend maybe-friend, and Steve deserves more credit than he's given for not simply leaping out of the bed and demanding answers. It's what he would've done, at any rate. But Steve just blinks at Tony, dazed confusion writ all over his face. "Where am I, Tony?"

"The future," Tony whispers, though he thinks Steve's already figured this out by the fact that he doesn't look shocked so much as, well, pretty out of it. "1960, to be precise. You've been out for--"

"Fifteen years," Steve says. "I know."

For once, Tony isn't rambling on or trying to fill the silence with chatter. He simply waits for Steve to say something, to do something. It's all him now. Always has been. "I should be nearly forty," Steve says slowly. "I'm not, though."

"You're not," Tony agrees. 

There's another pause, and then something desperate comes over Steve, and he's sitting up so quickly that he nearly bangs his head against the headboard of his bed. "Did we win, Tony? The war?" Steve asks, eyes blown open. 

"Yeah," Tony says, and he visibly deflates in relief, "thanks to you, Steve. You.. you kinda saved the world back there, you know?"

"Didn't do it to save the world," Steve insists, and there's that stubbornness Tony'd missed, "just did it 'cause I had to."

"You didn't have to leave me," Tony says, and he thinks he might be crying for the first time since the day Steve's plane had gone down. He's not exactly sure how, but all of a sudden his cheeks are wet and he's sitting on Steve's bed and Steve's arms are wrapped around him and it's like a fucking fridge but he doesn't care, not when Steve's  _back_. "It was, it was so fuckin' hard, you know? To do it without you."

"You did good," Steve promises, leaning his forehead against Tony's. "You're here. That's all I need."

"Steve," Tony says, and he's never felt braver and more broken than in this moment, "I love you."

"I know," Steve says again, and his lips meet Tony's and it's like their first kiss all over again. Except it's  _better,_ bittersweet with years of longing and hurt and a war that's never really ended for either of them, and he finds that he doesn't quite mind that because Steve's here, kissing him, and something in his heart is settling into place like it belonged there all along. Tony kisses Steve back and his mind turns to static and every atom in him feels like it's melting.

The moment is soft and seems to end before it even started, and when Steve pulls back there's a look in his eyes that Tony knows is his and his alone. He knows he'll remember it till the day he he dies. "I love you too," Steve says, four words and eleven letters and a million lost seconds to make up for, and he's home.  _They're_ home. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Okay whew if you made it this far, thank you! Hope you liked it, though if you didn't that's okay too. Comments are always appreciated! Or you can drop by my tumblr (shellheadtony) if you wanna talk about Steve and Tony, Infinity War, or any of that good stuff really.


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